Although I have never sought popularity by any animated
speeches or inflammatory publications against the slavery
of the blacks, my opinion against it has always been
known, and my practice has been so conformable to my
sentiments that I have always employed freemen, both as
domestics and laborers, and never in my life did I own a
slave. The abolition of slavery must be gradual, and accomplished
with much caution and circumspection. Violent
means and measures would produce greater violations
of justice and humanity than the continuance of the practice.
Neither Mr. Mifflin nor yourselves, I presume, would
be willing to venture on exertions which would probably
excite insurrections among the blacks to rise against their
masters, and imbue their hands in innocent blood.

There are many other evils in our country which are
growing (whereas the practice of slavery is fast diminishing),
and threaten to bring punishment on our land more
immediately than the oppression of the blacks. That sacred
regard to truth in which you and I were educated,
and which is certainly taught and enjoined from on high,
seems to be vanishing from among us. A general relaxation
of education and government, a general debauchery
as well as dissipation, produced by pestilential philosophical
principles of Epicurus, infinitely more than by shows
and theatrical entertainments; these are, in my opinion,
more serious and threatening evils than even the slavery
of the blacks, hateful as that is. I might even add that I
have been informed that the condition of the common sort
of white people in some of the Southern States, particularly
Virginia, is more oppressed, degraded, and miserable,
than that of the negroes. These vices and these miseries
deserve the serious and compassionate consideration
of friends, as well as the slave trade and the degraded state
of the blacks. I wish you success in your benevolent endeavors
to relieve the distresses of our fellow creatures,
and shall always be ready to coöperate with you as far as
my means and opportunities can reasonably be expected
to extend.